Its been a long while since I last updated everyone.
I have settled into life in Kolkata and the frantic attempt to try to fit an entire language into my head in 8 weeks. So for the past three (wow! times flies) weeks I haven't felt like I've had much to share. My days have consisted of waking up, Skyping, furiously drinking tea, catching the bus to school, being shamed at school for the shear number of grammar rules and words I can't remember, stuffing my face with rice and lentils, catching the bus back home, studying for 6 hours, furiously drinking tea, Skyping, sleeping, and then repeating it all over again. My focus on studying has meant that I haven't made much time to just "be" in the city or truly "see" it.
Of course, the truth is that there is plenty to share about this place--about its beauty and complexity, its demands and the frustration it can cause, about the way it is changing me in big and little ways. I've just neglected to truly stop and notice them. I've been too busy trying to feel comfortable and trying to communicate--two things that go hand in hand.
Here are few things I have seen and experienced but failed to share:
-Long talks over tea with Sandhyadi, my "Indian mom"(not the home-owner but the head "worker" in the home), who cooks the grandest food and gives you sugary tea and hugs when you have a bad headache, and is super good at correcting my Bangla.
She shares with me little bits of her life and I try to speak enough Bangla to tell her about mine. She left her village and her husband to have her daughter, Pinkey in Kolkata so that she could make better money for her family and so Pinkey could go to better schools growing up. As a consequence, she never sees her husband and she literally works from morning to night. The other day I was joking around with Pinkey and Rakesh in my bedroom. They were telling me that my floor was much cooler than my bed and I should sleep on the floor with the cat. I jokingly said, "Sleep on the floor! I'm not a cat!" I had never seen Sandhyadi's room that she shares with her daughter. I thought it was upstairs. But as it turns out, it is the empty room just down my hall. I didn't think anyone lived in there because there was literally nothing in it. But I had to wake her up early one morning to open the gate to the house and she and Pinkey were sleeping on the floor with a pillow and a sheet. I had no idea. The person I care about the most in this house, who literally feeds and clothes me, watches me flit in and out of the house with my bed and my air conditioning and my bottled water and my new little things I buy at stores, literally has nothing but the clothes she washes and dries on the roof. Sometimes I don't know how she looks at me without anger, but she doesn't. She just loves on me and tells me that if I'm happy, she is happy. There's alot to unpack in all of that socially and politically, but basically, our inequality is just not fair. The fact that I know enough Bangla to speak with her and form a relationship with her will probably be the most important part of this entire trip. I have no solution to the inequality between us.
-Bus culture: it is chaotic and cramped and you'd better know what you're doing when you get on or off (because the bus doesn't really stop), but in general, the bus culture in Kolkata is pretty wonderful--at least from what I've seen and experienced. If you are a lady and you hop on and there is a man sitting in the "ladies" section, the other riders, and especially the other ladies, will sternly tell the man to get up and insist that you sit there--this doesn't just apply to white folks like myself. If you are a scared and lost looking foreigner, the bus helpers will take pity on you and come and poke you when your stop is coming up. If you are a scared and lost looking foreigner and you can't seem to find the right bus, a billion different people will go out of their way to tell you which bus to take and then tell the bus helper where you are going. If you are a super cute and super old Indian woman, the bus will actually stop for you to get on or off--the only time an Indian bus really slows down. Oh, and, if there are two dogs having sex in the middle of the road, buses will move out of the way until they have, um, well, finished. Its the only thing buses move out of the way for, but, its a nice gesture all the same.
-Indian haircuts: I went to a nicer place to get my haircut, because I had seen Tim Felton's video and wasn't ready for such an intense massage experience. I got this really wonderful guy named Raza. He took alot of time cutting each piece and seemed to have a really good time. In the end, he basically chopped off all my hair, and then smothered my head in hair gel and hairspray until it looked alot like a spikey ball. Then he took alot of pictures and everyone in the salon looked on. I don't think women regularly get my haircut. I couldn't exactly tell if they thought what he was doing was really cool or if they just thought I looked ridiculous, but, maybe it was a bit of both. Before the haircut I got a pretty sweet head massage while I was getting shampooed. Aside from a few painfully intense moments during the massage, it was totally delightful.
Then....
amidst my own little enjoyable moments on buses and in markets and hair salons, trotting about and feeling enlightened and like I'm "roughing it" to experience the world, there is this moment all around me: a mom and her kids sleeping in the mid-day heat on the street. She gently fans her kids to ensure they don't over heat. A dad and his little boy sleep in the middle of one of the biggest intersections in the city. He has found or purchased some earbud headphones that he shares with his son to help block out some of the sound so they can sleep. I catch a short moment in which he gently strokes his son's forehead. I walk on to school worried about whether I'll get there on time.
India and the people that live here are not for my enjoyment or contemplation or enlightenment or consumption, much like is often depicted in books and movies of foreigners like myself "experiencing India". Everyone living here is a child of God. Some with more money than I will ever have, some with generous hearts, some who have greater need than I'm likely to ever know. But they don't stop existing the moment I stop noticing them or experiencing some great new thing because of them (I think this is how many films and books about India tend to depict it). And in truth, sometimes my mind thinks otherwise. It is easy to make yourself the center of the universe, in large part because it means you don't have to think about what happens to that mom or dad when you walk away and do nothing.
Everyday, I try to maintain that feeling of comfort that I need to feel like I'm not about to totally lose it, and still at the same time, maintain legitimate care and concern for the people all around me. The two seem unbalanceable. To really recognize the humanity and need of everyone is to be really uncomfortable, to recognize that you don't need the comfort, and that the comfort is what stands in the way of you being with others and being in the world. I am fully conditioned to need comfort so its very hard to let go of the stuff that makes me feel safe-especially when I am here. The words of Christ to leave behind our stuff and follow are particularly powerful and seem particularly impossible when I'm here. I feel like all I can do sometimes is recognize how far I have to go before I can be ready to serve...I just ethically rev up and stall out alot here.
But, I'm not doing it alone. Not just because The Holy Spirit walks with me, but, because I got a very important package in the air mail on Thursday:
He looks pretty good for having traveled for like 4 days to get to me!
I feel so incredibly blessed to have a husband that is willing to fly across the world to be with me. Already, just three days since his arrival, we have experienced so much together, and have realized so much about our lives and our marriage and our privilege and the difficulty of living the Kingdom. I will share some of those stories in the next post. But for now, I can say that I hope that with Travis we can better figure out together what to do with what we've been given and have the courage to share it, because we've been given alot, and its not meant for hoarding. So far we have learned that our time here is likely to be full of humiliation--learning humility by recognizing your own foolishness--in language, in culture, in consumption. Its positive humiliation.
On the note of Travis' arrival, I will leave now to spend some time with him. Your prayers for my continued health and for his health and safety while we travel are much appreciated. I also want to share that Pinkey came down with a high fever on Friday. She is going in to the doctor on Monday to check for malaria. Will you hold her and her mom, Sandhya up in your prayers? I will update you on what they find out at the doctor.
We hope you are all doing wonderfully and love you!
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